Meta reported earnings today and far surpassed expectations. The company saw a 14.9% increase year-over-year, coming in at $6.03 a share, well above analysts expected $5.25.
One of the reasons for the surge in earnings is because of AI-driven advertising optimization.
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A few weeks ahead of the earnings report, Zuckerberg sat down with Brad Gilbert and David Rosenthal of the Acquired podcast. The three talked for an hour in the Chase Center in San Francisco in front of a live audience of 6,000 people.
The conversation veered from Facebook's origin story to Zuckerberg's cattle ranch in Hawaii to his regrets about Facebook's role in ongoing political chaos and what he's focused on for the next 10-15 years.
At the start of the interview, the hosts asked about the graphic tee Zuckerberg was wearing, and he shared that clothing design is one of the many hobbies he is indulging in these days, along with cattle ranching, MMA and making art.
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The Greek letters on the shirt (see images) say "pathemathos," or "learning through suffering." "It's a little family saying," Zuckerberg said with a laugh, "and also Aeschylus."
Below are some highlights from the hour-long conversation.
Why Mark Zuckerberg set up Facebook the way he did — and has no regrets
When Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, "I thought of it like a project, not a company," he said. "I couldn't articulate where were going...and I didn't inspire confidence."
So in 2006, when Yahoo offered $1 billion for the company and Zuckerberg turned down the offer, his board tried to fire him, he says. "Everyone else on the management team left because I hadn't done a good job communicating. I don't want to blame them [but] I hadn't done a good job communicating the long-term vision."
Related: Mark Zuckerberg fires back at a major concern about social media
After that experience, Zuckerberg continued, "I was like, all right, well, I don't want to get fired from my own company for wanting to build it, so let's try to set up a governance structure that makes it somewhat harder to do that. So...learning through suffering!"
Facebook's governance structure includes a board of directors, a CEO, and a matrix organizational structure which is designed to "support creativity, innovation and expansion." Meta Platforms, Inc. is Facebook's holding company.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Zuckerberg wants Meta to build more 'awesome things'
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zuckerberg said he had some time to focus on things outside of Meta and do things "with people." He found that as a self-described introvert, he needs time with himself. He also gets "to work on interesting science problems with Pricilla, my wife. I get to design t-shirts with some of the best fashion designers in the world." Another side project: cattle. "I'm trying to see if we can raise the highest quality beef in the world."
"There is a difference between building good things and building awesome things," Zuckerberg said. "Awesome is uplifting and inspiring. Leads you to be more optimistic. I want to build more things that are awesome in addition to building things that are good."
Making mistakes is part of the journey
When asked about Facebook's role in political upheaval in 2016, Zuckerberg said, "I think I didn't have much sophistication around and I think I just fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. I don't want to simplify this too much. I mean, there were a lot of things that we did wrong."
"There were some things that we did right, but I think one of the things that I look back on regret is: We accepted other people's view of some of the things that they were asserting that we were doing wrong or were responsible for."
"I think the right instinct is to take ownership for it, say okay, maybe it's not all our thing, but we're going to fully own this problem, we're going to take responsibility for it, we're going to fix it."
"We've sort of found our footing on what the principles are, where we think we need to improve stuff, but where people make allegations about the impact of the tech industry or our company which are just not founded in any fact."
"I think it's going to take another 10 years or so for us to fully work through that cycle before our brand and all of that is back to the place that it maybe could have been if I hadn't messed that up in the first place," he added.
Reality Labs is Zuckerberg's focus right now
When the conversation steered toward the company's future, one of the hosts asked Zuckerberg about the "gajillion dollars," the company is spending on Reality Labs, the arm of the company focused on virtual reality and augmented reality hardware and software.
"I'm pretty sure glasses and holographic presence and AR is going to be a completely ubiquitous product, right, it's just like everyone who had a phone before replaced it with a smartphone and then a lot of more people got smartphones."
Zuckerberg's bullish on the company's future.
"If all we get is all the people in the world who already have glasses upgrading to glasses that have AI in them, then this is already going to be one of the most successful products in the history of the world, and I think it's going to go a lot further than that."
Zuckerberg said, "We align on a mission, and we run toward it. " The entire interview can be found on Spotify (SPOT) .
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